My co-worker and I realized that between us we have about 75 years of living in Hawaii, and neither of us know what most of the fruits at the farmer’s market are. Fruits that look like dragon eggs, or prehistoric thistles, or hacked limbs from giant insects. Ask what they are, and most people will whisper from the side of their mouth, “Those are Filipino.” That is not an answer.
We decided to buy one mystery fruit every week and figure out how to eat it, because this is embarrassing. To begin the endeavor, I picked one that was only a dollar. Start simple.
“What is this called?”
“One dollar!”
“No, sorry, it’s name, what is the name of this thing?”
“One dollar!”
“Ok, but WHAT IS IT?”
“Oh! Oh! OK. One dollar.”
Luckily, our custodian is from the Philippines, and she explained that it is a guyabano (gwai-a-bano), or soursop. This is good. Soursops have a friendly reputation.
I didn’t know how to approach this thing, so I cut it in half. That is generally a good way to handle things you are unfamiliar with. Ask the Romans.
Oh, it looks like lungs.
Oh, good, it feels like lungs, too.
It burbles, and oozes viscous white fluid, and tears apart like organ flesh, and it is goddamn delicious. You flick the seeds out and chew the pulpy bits and it is like a mouthful of sweet flowers.
“We make smoothies with it,” our custodian said. “And it cures cancer. Everybody eats it because they don’t want cancer, and then they boil the leaves and drink that. But when you boil the leaves, it can cause brain damage and make you go crazy. So don’t do that.”
There you go. Soursop: delicious and cancer-curing, when it doesn’t make you go crazy.
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